Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has finally come out of the stone-age and has entered the 2st century by introducing ticketing facility from its website. This step however, is partial. I say partial because the facility is available only on domestic routes currently.

PIA had tried introducing web ticketing some time back also, but there were some credit security issues and there were a lot of scams, which led to a suspension of the service. This time around, PIA has made sure that there is no such issue and credit credits are processed securely without any possibilty of fraud (hopefully).

If you click on try to use PIA web ticketing facility, it takes you to the secure website of https://cat.sabresonicweb.com for credit card processing. The S at the end of HTTP ensures that the website is secured and secondly, the service is owned by Sabre, a well reputed American firm in airline industry.

The facility is initially available for travel only between 8 domestic stations (Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Quetta, Multan, Faisalabad, Sukkur and Peshawar). More domestic stations will be included later and finally International destinations will also be included.

Below is some important information that everybody should consider before making a web purchase.

• Initially, web-ticketing facility is available for travel between eight (08) domestic stations (Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Quetta, Multan, Faisalabad, Sukkur and Peshawar).

• Web generated tickets for user, eliminating the risk of being lost or stolen.

• Ticket / receipt is also transferred to passengers’ personal email.

• Meal preference can be requested at the time of on-line transaction.

• Web-ticket can also be booked online with an option to pay at any PIA city or airport ticket office within three (03) hours as per applicable payment policy.

• Applicable against Visa and Master Credit Cards only.

• Web-tickets are non-transferable, non-endorsable and non-exchangeable.

• The cut-off time to restrict web ticketing sales for domestic flights would be six hours (06) prior departure.

• Passenger must obtain a printout of web ticket receipt either at the end of transaction or from his/her personal e-mail.

• Passengers may cancel their reservations through PIA Contact Center.

• Passenger must present the following documents at the time of check-in which will be verified by the check-in officer for security/authentication of passenger(s):

                           1)  Original Photo ID (CNIC or Passport)
                           2)  Printout of web ticket receipt/itinerary
                           3)  Original Credit Card used for web ticket transactionCredit

• Card-holder must be one of the accompanying passenger(s)